Old(er) Games Rant

Well, as requested, I am putting up a rant. If this seems to work well, I’ll section off a portion of the blog to contain solely my rants. Which actually seems like a good idea. Anyway…

Steven Gallo and Spencer Roberts were talking about Age of Empires, and the recent expansion packs for it. Asian Empires or something. Anyway, Spencer was getting mad about how people were getting more and more attracted to the newer games while the older ones are falling by the wayside. I agree heartily. One example- Starcraft. Still played by many people. Personally, I love it. I’ll hop on and play a few rounds just for the hell of it occasionaly. Great music, great gameplay, great humor, great story. BUT!!! Did it end up this way overnight? Did Blizzard grace us with one of the greatest RTS games ever made in one day? No! It took ten years of updates to get Starcraft to where it is now. Ten years. That’s a long time. But it was worth it! People play this game for money. It’s crazy.

Which… is why Starcraft II, I’m predicting, will be a bomb. People are going to wait in lines for it, going to get angry over it, probably going to kill each other over it (too much? Well some guy got shot over a PS3 at Wal-Mart.), and when they get it home, they’re going to be expecting to take a perfect game out of the box. It won’t be. There will be bugs. There will be balance issues. There will be people exploiting these. (Imagine 4 pool times a hundred. If you don’t know what 4 pool is, look it up.) And people will get mad. They will hate Blizzard, they will hate Starcraft, they will renounce everything made by them. And then Blizzard will say, “Well, that was a bomb. No sense in fixing it if nothing is going to get better.” And then it’ll go away, to later be found on bargain bins everywhere (Which is where I found Oblivion GOTY edition, I am SO LIVID about this), forsaken by all. I just think it’s going to be a disaster.

Not that I’m saying modern games aren’t good. Mass Effect- great game. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion- great game. Fallout 3- despite the controversy and “not living up to the previous titles”, great game. (I wasn’t a fan of the Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics. I sucked at them, and it seemed a little too slow anyway.) Bioshock, GTA IV, Halo Wars, Halo ODST, CODMW2, all excellent games. But people shouldn’t forget about the old games. Shouldn’t forget about the classics. Because if they do… then we are all. Going. To DIE.

2 Responses to “Old(er) Games Rant”

See? That made me laugh, and was mildly informative to boot. You can make a very good blog, you’ve just got to find your niche. Your style is distinct, distinct stands out from the noise and equals success. Unless that distinction gets you stoned for being a witch, then you’re screwed.